


Emergency Contact

by cosmicbluebells



Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: Bedsharing, Getting Together, Hospitals, M/M, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:09:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29934588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicbluebells/pseuds/cosmicbluebells
Summary: “Is this Nanjo Kojiro?” an unfamiliar voice asks, calm and soothing. He narrows his eyes.“…Yes?” he responds hesitantly, untying his apron. He hangs it on a hook next to the back door and heads back to the sink to wash his hands, the phone lodged between his ear and shoulder. “Sorry, what are you—”“I’m the receptionist at Okinawa General Hospital,” the woman replies. “Your number was listed as an emergency contact for…Sakurayashiki Kaoru?”Kojiro has almost forgotten about Kaoru by the time he gets a call from the hospital.["we haven't seen each other in years but somehow i'm still your emergency contact."]
Relationships: Nanjo Kojiro | Joe/Sakurayashiki Kaoru | Cherry Blossom
Comments: 41
Kudos: 583





	Emergency Contact

**Author's Note:**

> vv creative name, i know,,, sorry to come back at you again so soon after my last fic but i had this brainworm after ep 9 and it would not leave until i wrote something about it. this fic is mad unrealistic & was written with negligible hospital knowledge but i don't even care at this point.

Kojiro is putting away a chopping board under the sink when his phone rings. The sound cuts sharp through the encroaching silence of twilight, and he almost hits his head on the pantry in surprise.

He closes the drawer and glances at the caller ID. It’s a number he doesn’t know, but he picks up anyway.

“Is this Nanjo Kojiro?” an unfamiliar voice asks, calm and soothing. He narrows his eyes.

“…Yes?” he responds hesitantly, untying his apron. He hangs it on a hook next to the back door and heads back to the sink to wash his hands, the phone lodged between his ear and shoulder. “Sorry, what are you—”

“I’m the receptionist at Okinawa General Hospital,” the woman replies. “Your number was listed as an emergency contact for…Sakurayashiki Kaoru?”

Kojiro’s shoulders stiffen. “What happened to him?” he manages to get out, even though his brain is screaming at him with a constant stream of _what, why, how?_

He hasn’t spoken to Kaoru in _years_ , not since he was first applying to culinary school. He didn’t even know his number was still in Kaoru’s contact list. 

“He suffered a rather nasty accident while skateboarding,” the receptionist answers patiently. 

And Kojiro remembers, he remembers how adamant Kaoru had always been about watching for danger signs when skateboarding and being careful on busy streets, and he thinks, _what have you done?_

He presses his lips together. “Oh.”

“His parents couldn’t be reached, but we thought we should let you know. He’ll need a signature to be discharged from the hospital. Are you a family member?”

 _Practically_ , thinks Kojiro wryly, with how long they’d been friends. But then again, maybe not. Kaoru is as good as a stranger to him now. “No,” he says instead. “We’re…close friends.”

 _Close friends_ doesn’t quite cut it either. They were close at some point, yes. But even then, Kojiro always muddied the boundaries between ‘friends’ and ‘more than that,’ with the number of times he’d looked at Kaoru while he was sleeping and thought, _I really want to kiss you right now_.

The receptionist sounds unperturbed. “That’s fine,” she says calmly. “He’s sleeping right now, but I’m sure he’d appreciate you being there when he wakes up. And we’ll have to go over his prescriptions as well.”

Kojiro fumbles for his keys. “What’s the address?” he asks.

The receptionist gives it to him. 

He itches to take his skateboard, but someone will need to help get Kaoru home and the chance of getting hit on the main road is too high. 

So he unlocks his car and gets in.

━━━━━━

Honestly, Kojiro is surprised Kaoru hasn’t forgotten who he is, or at least that Kaoru remembers enough not to delete his phone number. 

Kojiro always had the distinct feeling that Kaoru was significantly more important to him than he was to Kaoru, especially when Kojiro saw the way Kaoru’s eyes lit up at the sight of Adam and resigned himself to knowing that his friend would never feel the same way about him.

They didn’t part on bad terms. It was a mutual departure if anything, an unspoken agreement that neither of them would go looking for the other when they were off at university and leading their own lives. That never stopped Kojiro from staring at Kaoru’s contact info on his phone, finger poised over the ‘call’ button. He may not have called, but he always felt utterly pathetic afterwards, pining for his estranged high school friend even as a fully-capable adult.

He doesn’t think about Kaoru often, per se—given more time, he’s sure he would eventually forget Kaoru’s tattoo and lip piercing and pink ponytail, but he’s single and sentimental and Kaoru crops up in most, if not all, of his high school photos. 

So Kojiro has been remembering more details about Kaoru recently that make it kind of hard to focus at his job; the exact amber hue of his eyes, the way his voice used to lilt up in pitch when he was excited, that fucking AI skateboard he refused to leave behind on field trips.

Kaoru’s name, when it spills from the receptionist’s lips, is like an amalgamation of nostalgia and vestigial heartbreak that comes together and almost bowls Kojiro over.

His first instinct tells him to hang up and ignore the receptionist, but a baser, more deeply-rooted part of him whispers that Kaoru is _hurt_ , that he needs his help. And that’s when Kojiro sets aside his ill-fated crush and slips into panic mode.

He was Kaoru’s best friend for almost five years. They haven’t talked for a while, but Kojiro can’t exactly step away now.

━━━━━━

He pushes open the front door to the hospital. The air-conditioning hits him full in the face, and the musty air smells like hand sanitizer and lavender. The walls are achromatic, impossibly clinical; he steps up to the receptionist’s desk and says, “I’m here for Sakurayashiki Kaoru?”

The receptionist looks him up and down, making him feel incredibly underdressed in a pair of flip-flops and one of his loudest tropical shirts that smells vaguely like Italian food. “Nanjo Kojiro?”

“That’s me,” he answers, tapping his foot on the linoleum tile.

“He’s just down the hall. Room 20B.”

Kojiro’s footsteps echo against the grey-speckled floors. He peers at the plaques next to the doors one by one, stopping finally in front of 20B. He breathes in deep, his chest tight with worry, and knocks.

A nurse opens the door. He looks surprised to see Kojiro there, but lets him step further into the room anyway. “He’s asleep right now,” he says. “You can sit in that chair.” He jerks his chin at a chair in the corner of the room, and then looks back at Kojiro. “We’re monitoring his vitals, but he should be fine. We’re hoping to discharge him tomorrow afternoon.”

Kojiro nods gratefully. “Sounds good.” Kaoru’s skateboard is propped up against one wall, and there’s instrumental music piping out of it softly. Kojiro vaguely recognizes the tune as a lullaby.

“If he wakes up and wants anything, just press that button. One of us will come and take care of him.”

“Great,” Kojiro answers. “Thank you so much for your help.”

The nurse leaves with a parting wave, closing the door quietly on his way out, and Kojiro finally has a chance to look at Kaoru properly. 

There’s a plaster on the pale ridge of his jawline and his head is wrapped in a bandage. His arms and legs are hidden beneath the blanket, but the position he’s placed in is enough to assure Kojiro that there are more injuries on the rest of his body. His pink hair is splayed out across the pillow, a couple of strands floating gently around his face.

His lashes flutter, and Kojiro’s heart squeezes.

Kaoru has always been beautiful. It’s a fact of life. The sky is blue and the earth spins on its axis and Kaoru is the most beautiful person Kojiro knows. He’s older now; he’s grown out of the eyeliner and piercings that used to adorn his face, but he’s just as beautiful.

Even while asleep, the slope of Kaoru’s nose is delicate and proud and the fluorescent hotel lights do nothing to discolour his complexion. He turns his head to the other side, and the blanket falls down slightly to reveal the flower tattoo on his collarbone.

The flower tattoo was part of a dare they had, one that hinged on the results of a race to see who could get to the beach faster from ‘S.’ Kojiro won by a hair, and Kaoru had begrudgingly accepted his fate.

It’s not a cherry blossom that graces the curve of his neck; Kaoru had put his foot down at Kojiro’s first suggestion of his namesake flower and his second, a skateboard, settling instead for a Chinese bellflower, star-shaped and threaded through with dark purple veins.

The purple ink slips back under the blanket and Kojiro looks away. He flicks off the room light and curls up in the chair, drawing his knees up to his chest.

It’s a tight fit in the small hospital seat, but he rests his chin on his knees and fixes his gaze on Kaoru’s heart monitor anyway.

It’s going to be a long night.

━━━━━━

He’s awoken by the sound of blankets shifting. It’s late at night and the yellow street lamps outside are cupped in the murky palm of midnight, black as pitch and flecked with silvery stars. Kojiro rubs his eyes blearily. 

In the darkness of the room, he can vaguely make out a figure sitting up in bed. 

He stumbles out of the chair. His back aches and his legs cramp up as soon as he tries to move, but he gets to the light switch and turns it on. The room is instantly bathed in harsh white light. 

Kaoru blinks at him owlishly, squinting. His right arm is in a cast. Kojiro winces; it’ll be a long time before he can attempt writing. Calligraphy is another story altogether.

“Kojiro,” he states, looking confused. “Why are you here?”

Kaoru’s voice is deep and throaty with sleep. Kojiro hasn’t heard it in almost six years, and it soothes some of the pinpricks of hurt poking at him, like a salve settling deep in his heart. 

His mouth feels like it’s filled with cotton. “The hospital called me. I was your emergency contact,” he says. It’s difficult to get the words off his tongue. 

Kaoru’s brow smooths out. “Oh,” he answers. “I…sorry about that. I forgot to change it.”

Kojiro finds it ironic that he was even listed as an emergency contact in the first place, considering how often Kaoru told him he wouldn’t trust him with a pack of gum, let alone his life. “It’s fine,” he replies, waving his hands. The joints in his back crack and he grimaces. “I was in the area anyway.”

Kaoru nods. He opens his mouth. Closes it. “Can you—find my glasses? I can’t really see.”

“Oh—of course,” Kojiro responds, flailing his arms. “Do you know where they are?”

Kaoru shrugs. “No idea. Probably on the side table, but I wouldn’t know.”

Carla blinks purple. “Master, would you like me to turn off the music?”

“Go ahead, Carla,” Kaoru tells her.

Kojiro spots a glint of silver on the bedside table and picks up Kaoru’s glasses, making sure not to touch the lenses. He presents them to Kaoru. “Here you go.”

Kaoru rolls his eyes. “I’m injured, idiot. I can’t put them on.” He flaps his cast-covered arm as if to demonstrate.

Kojiro pales. “Right. I forgot.” The sheets crinkle as he rests one knee on them, extending his arms. He and Kaoru are less than a foot apart and Kaoru’s glasses are held loosely in his grip.

His eyes are a clear amber. _God, his eyelashes are really—_

“Are you going to put them on or not?” Kaoru’s voice interrupts him sharply.

“Give me a second,” he snaps, placing the glasses carefully on the bridge of Kaoru’s nose. “You’re so ungrateful.” He gets off the bed and sits back down in the uncomfortable chair.

“I almost died. I think I get to be a little ungrateful,” Kaoru shoots back.

“What did you even _do_ to end up like…this?” he asks, motioning to Kaoru’s cast.

Kaoru’s jaw clenches and a barely-there pink settles into his cheeks.

 _Is he—embarrassed?_ Kojiro wonders. _About what?_

“I was racing Adam,” Kaoru mumbles weakly.

“Huh?” Kojiro thinks he must have misheard, because the last he knew, Adam was still in America, far away from Japan, not just Okinawa.

“I was racing Adam, moron,” Kaoru answers, louder. “He hit me in the face with his fucking skateboard and I fell down.”

“What the _hell_?” Kojiro asks incredulously. “Why?”

Kaoru sighs. “He said I was too predictable. Or something. I’m going to be in a wheelchair for at least a month.”

Kojiro clenches his fist. “What a dirtbag.”

“You could say that again,” Kaoru replies. “But I can’t exactly undo it. What’s done is done.”

 _What’s done is done_ , Kojiro repeats in his head. Injuries can’t be undone. Tattoos can’t be un-inked. Friendships can’t be un-broken. “Can’t he be arrested for that? It has to be illegal, somehow.”

“He’s a politician, Kojiro,” Kaoru points out. “Who would arrest him?”

Kojiro slumps. He hates that Kaoru is right.

Kaoru yawns, and suddenly Kojiro notices the dark shadows beneath his eyes, stark purple and ashen against the rest of his face. “Go back to sleep,” he says. “I’ll wake you up in the morning.”

Kaoru’s eyes narrow. “No.”

“Yes.”

“No,” he says again, more petulant. Kojiro stands back up and turns off the light.

“Yes.”

“ _Fine_ ,” he responds, caving. “But I’m not tired.”

“Your body needs rest to heal,” Kojiro says firmly. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re tired or not.”

Kaoru mumbles something about armchair doctors and lies back down. His limbs are spread awkwardly, the cast a dead weight on his chest and his legs twisted in opposite directions.

“Need help?” Kojiro suggests.

Kaoru pauses, considering. “Yes please,” he says finally.

Kojiro walks to the other side of the bed and turns on the lamp. He moves Kaoru’s arm to the side cautiously so it doesn’t crush his windpipe. He pulls back most of the blanket and takes Kaoru’s ankle, then rearranges both of his legs until the position looks more comfortable.

“Thanks,” Kaoru mutters, sinking into the pillow. His features are backlit by the yellow light and the darker pink undertones of his hair are even more obvious. “Good night.”

Kojiro turns off the lamp. “Sleep well.”

━━━━━━

He wakes up for the second time when the room is aglow with the faint beginnings of dawn, painting the walls with dusty shades of pale orange. Carla is playing music again, someone singing and strumming the guitar.

“What’s wrong?” he mumbles, running a hand through his wild mop of hair. Kaoru’s gold eyes are boring into his forehead and he returns the gaze sleepily.

“Can’t sleep,” Kaoru says shortly.

“Whaddya want me to do about it?” Kojiro asks. He covers his yawn with a hand and scratches his arm. “Should I ask for breakfast already?”

Kaoru shakes his head. “Not hungry.”

Kojiro racks his brain. Kaoru has always been a light sleeper—Kojiro had to cajole him to sleep the night before exams and sometimes he’d find Kaoru at the skate park long past midnight, just sitting there, neck craned to look at the moon. Kaoru told him it was because the thoughts in his head were too loud to get any sleep, and he couldn’t exactly turn them off.

Kojiro remembers some of the things he used to do: play music, offer food, even sit there with him and let Kaoru be silent. One time, too, when Kaoru was desperate for sleep and his guard was down and he’d let them sleep in the same bed, Kojiro’s arms wrapped around Kaoru’s waist and his breath warm on the back of Kaoru’s neck.

He thinks Kaoru must have forgotten about it by now. Kojiro had extracted himself long before he woke up and spent a good half-hour just staring at Kaoru, at his best friend, at how pretty he looked when he wasn’t screaming at Kojiro, hair mussed and lashes fanned out across his cheekbones.

Kaoru scrutinizes him, eyes unreadable. Kojiro squirms under the intensity of his gaze, but it dissipates after a moment and his voice is tentative. “Can you…hug me?”

Kojiro raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me?” There’s a teasing remark on the tip of his tongue.

“You know what I mean,” Kaoru retorts defensively. The dawn light catches on the curved bow of his lips and Kojiro’s mouth snaps shut, because there’s no reason anyone should have the right to be this beautiful. “Just do it, fool.”

“Are you sure this is allowed?”

“Of course I’m sure. I’m not going to injure myself more than I already have,” Kaoru responds waspishly.

Kojiro lifts his hands in surrender. “Sheesh, okay.” He stands up and his back creaks again. He settles against the bed, the frame squeaking, and gets into a horizontal position. “How do you want to do this?”

Kaoru looks at him. “Doesn’t matter,” he says, and something flickers in his eyes, like he can’t quite believe this is happening. Kojiro doesn’t know if he believes it either.

Kojiro shifts closer, adjusting until he’s flush with Kaoru’s back. He carefully cradles Kaoru’s cast-wrapped elbow. Kaoru flinches at the touch.

“Is this okay?” Kojiro murmurs.

“Fine,” Kaoru grits out. “Keep going.”

Kojiro’s other arm reaches under to curl around Kaoru’s hip and the way Kaoru relaxes into his touch helps ease some of the uncertainty. He ends up with his chin on Kaoru’s (bony) shoulder and intertwines the fingers of his left hand loosely with Kaoru’s uninjured ones.

“Good night,” he says softly. Kaoru doesn’t say it back, but it hangs in the air between them, lingering.

They fall asleep like that, steeped in the light of daybreak, Kaoru’s chest rising and falling, the touch suffusing their bodies with warmth and the space between them filled with hundreds of thousands of words that don’t need to be said. Their breaths are gentle. The bellflower tattoo is a blanched shade of lilac against Kaoru’s neck. 

Kojiro squeezes his eyes shut.

━━━━━━

The sky is blue and the earth spins on its axis and Kaoru is the most beautiful person Kojiro knows. 

The sky is blue and the earth spins on its axis and Kojiro is so, so gone for Kaoru after only a few hours of seeing him again. Apathy ebbs away and affection washes in like the tide kissing the shore.

And Kojiro is sure they’re going to go back to their normal lives after this, that Kaoru is going to walk (wheel, perhaps) out of this hospital room without looking back, that they’ll be reduced to sporadic text messages and high school reunions and maybe the occasional birthday invitation if Kojiro is lucky. 

But he can’t help wishing for more.

━━━━━━

He’s stirred awake for a third time by a knock at the door. The knob rotates and the same nurse from before steps in, wheeling a cart behind him. “Good morning,” he greets Kojiro when he sits up and blinks the sleep out of his eyes.

“Morning,” Kojiro replies automatically. He looks down. Kaoru is still fast asleep, his mouth slightly open. Kojiro smooths his hair off his forehead, careful not to move the bandage wrapped around his head.

The bed dips as he steps back onto solid ground. The nurse watches him with a vague look of interest. “Make sure he takes these painkillers when he wakes up,” he instructs, pointing at an assortment of pills next to the bowl of miso soup.

“Got it,” Kojiro answers, nodding. He sits back down in the hospital chair and pulls out his phone. He shoots off a message to Hiroko telling her he can’t make it to the restaurant today and that she’ll get a bonus for covering his shift.

He spends the rest of the morning swiping through his emails and reading the news. Carla dings. “Wake up, master,” she says. “It is eight o’clock. You will be late for work.”

Kaoru bolts up automatically and hisses at the pain. “Fuck,” he grunts. “I forgot.”

“Whoa,” Kojiro says, rushing to steady him. He helps him lie back down and puts his glasses on his face. “No work today. You can’t get there, much less write.”

Kaoru looks at him with despair. “I have to email my clients.”

Kojiro shakes his head. “Not until you’ve taken your medicine and eaten breakfast. Then I’ll help you write the emails.”

Kaoru seems like he’s about to protest, but he relents, shifting until he’s in a sitting position. Kojiro hands him the pills one by one and he swallows dutifully. Kojiro places the breakfast tray carefully on his lap.

Kaoru’s arm flaps uselessly at his side and he tries to lift his uninjured hand up to grasp the spoon. It shakes so badly that he has to stop halfway through.

Kojiro places the spoon in his hand, wrapping Kaoru’s fingers one by one around the handle. “Careful, it’s hot.”

“I know that,” Kaoru counters. “It’s difficult, okay?”

“I’m sure it is,” Kojiro says patiently. “Just don’t burn yourself.”

“I won’t.”

Kojiro watches from the chair as he struggles to raise the spoon to his mouth. He offers to help twice, but Kaoru bats him aside both times, hell-bent on finishing the soup himself. He finally manages to tip back the last spoonful and set it down with minimal spillage. Kojiro sweeps in and puts the tray back on the cart before it can tip over.

Kaoru leans back immediately afterwards, emails seemingly forgotten. Kojiro sits down on the edge of the bed. A beat of silence.

“You can lie down here, you know,” Kaoru says, voice muffled by a pillow.

Kojiro startles. “I—are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t _offer_ if I wasn’t sure, dimwit.”

Kojiro rolls his eyes. “Whatever.” He scoots up the bed and ends up lying down, face-to-face with Kaoru. He doesn’t dare to breathe. Kaoru looks so vulnerable like this, gold eyes half-closed and hair fanning out around his head in a waterfall of pink.

Kojiro swallows. His throat is dry.

“Hey,” Kaoru whispers faintly.

Kojiro looks right back at him. He reaches out and ghosts his fingers over the plaster on Kaoru’s chin. “Hi.”

“Can I tell you something?”

Kojiro nods silently. He keeps his hand there, resting gently on Kaoru’s jaw, and Kaoru leans into the touch.

“I…” Kaoru swallows hard. “I didn’t delete your phone number because sometimes—I thought maybe you’d call me. Or I’d get up the courage to call you,” he continues, sighing. “I thought we might work out eventually, even though I was scared. I thought— _hoped_ you would text me out of the blue. And then maybe we could be something.”

“Something as in…” Kojiro trails off. A seed of hope blooms in his chest, filmy and intangible.

“As in—together,” Kaoru admits. He closes his eyes. Kojiro stares at the scar above his eyebrow where his piercing used to be, white and almost imperceptible.

“Together,” Kojiro murmurs.

Kaoru nods. Something like fear flashes brightly in his eyes and he frowns. “Unless you—”

“No,” Kojiro interrupts. “No, I…I want the same,” he says, stumbling. “I want to be together. With you,” he finishes lamely. “Unless it wasn’t already obvious.”

“Good,” Kaoru answers, smiling slightly.

Kojiro leans forward and captures his lips softly. It’s more of a gentle press than a real kiss, just long enough to share the same space as Kaoru and feel his tongue trace the swell of Kojiro’s bottom lip. But Kojiro’s mouth tingles when he pulls away and he’s close enough to see the practically-invisible freckles that dance across Kaoru’s nose, more obvious now that Kaoru’s cheeks have flushed dark. 

He plants a butterfly kiss on each one.

He trails his fingers down from Kaoru’s chin to his shoulder and uses a finger to outline the star-shaped bellflower tattoo. The hospital sheets crumple with the movement, thin and papery. Kojiro’s ankle hooks around Kaoru’s and their knees knock together.

Kaoru closes his eyes and hums, the sound travelling up Kojiro’s arm and bouncing off the echo chambers of his heart. 

“Do it again,” Kaoru whispers. It sounds like a dare.

Kojiro uses the palm of his hand to support Kaoru’s neck and pulls him in. He tastes like miso soup with a tang of something sweet that Kojiro can’t quite place, and he feels himself melt into Kaoru's lips, years worth of feelings exploding into solar flares beneath his fingers.

He interlocks his fingers with Kaoru’s carefully, burns and long-healed scars from kitchen knives staining the rough calluses of his hands a patchy pink, almost invisible in contrast to the scratches and bruises on Kaoru’s arms—most wrapped in bandages, some not. 

He kisses Kaoru deeper.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos, bookmarks, & comments are all greatly appreciated <3


End file.
